


this is how you lose her

by orphan_account



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F, Soulmate AU, angsty angsty soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 16:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: the last words you will ever hear your soulmate say are written on your skin</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is how you lose her

You're eleven, already five feet and seven inches of lanky, awkward preteen, when you wake to a dark scrawl across your skin. It's your birthday, and you're shucking off your pyjama shirt after your ma's shout that you're going to be late for school when you notice the writing in the mirror. Three words are enscribed over your heart in swirling black ink, fresh and shining in the morning light.

You've been taught about this, with lectures and diagrams and all manner of examples. You still don't quite get the concept though, that there's going to be a guy you'll want to spend the rest of your life with. There's no boy in your class you'd be able to tolerate for a day, let alone forever.

And if the idea of a 'soulmate' isn't stupid enough to begin with, the words aren't the first thing they'll say to you, but the last. What's the point in that?

You curl your lip and sneer at your reflection as you touch the tips of your fingers to the curled font that arcs across your skin. To top it all off, of course the words to show up on your skin are the ones every single one of your teachers had described as 'the most difficult to live with'.

You shake your head and grab a tee from your basket of clean laundry. No matter how much you want to, you can't keep your eyes off the reflection of the words in your mirror until the moment they disappear beneath folds of red cotton. Then your ma shouts for you again, and you're whisked off into the rush of a Rizzoli school morning, and the tattoo lies all but forgotten beneath your shirt. Out of sight, out of mind.

**RI**

You're fifteen, an athlete, with the corded muscle to prove it. You've managed to keep it hidden through four years in gym locker rooms and school showers, with well placed towels and turned backs. It's nobody's business but yours what words are imprinted on your skin; as long as you keep them safe they can't be used as a weapon.

It's your best friend Emily who steps in front of you, talking a mile a minute about some junior on the football team as she dries her hair.  _I'll be back before you know it_  is scrawled across her dainty collarbone. Her chatter comes to a dead halt, the silence ringing in your ears, and when you meet her eyes all you see is pity.

"Oh, Jane," she breathes, and you shove away the hand that reaches out to trace the words.

"Leave it, Em." You turn back to your locker and drag your hoodie over your head, breathe a sigh of relief when your heart is back under wraps. She doesn't speak another word, but you can feel her eyes following you when you swing your bookbag onto your back and stride from the changeroom.

She snags a seat beside you in your next period, and you keep your eyes glued to the blackboard.

**RI**

You're nineteen, and you wake up every day bruised and sore in a single bed with the imprint of a diamond ring in your left cheek. You entered the academy right out of high school, and there's an ache in your chest for the full ride to college that you missed out on over politics.

Your day starts on the firing range, the pistol less a weapon and more an extension of your body. The band of the ring clicks against the pistol grip when you shift your fingers slightly, and you thumb the jewelry around your finger for a moment.

His words had already been spoken to him, he'd told you under the bleachers after prom. The relief had lifted a weight from your shoulders, and when he'd proposed three months later you'd readily accepted. The compromise knotted a fist around your heart, but you'd rather a pale substitute than living every day in fear. You're married two weeks later, and a month after that he's overseas.

"Rizzoli," your CO barks, tearing you from your reverie, and you lower your gun and turn to him. His face is typically unreadable, but today there's sorrow in your eyes, and when you walk to him he pats you twice on the shoulder. He talks to you briefly, his words hushed, and you keep your shoulders back and your head held high.

You don't crumble until nighttime, alone in your bed listening to the jumbled sounds of the other recruits from the rec room down the hall. When you woke up that morning you were a wife. As you pull the blankets tighter around yourself, you swear to yourself that you'll go to bed a weapon and nothing more.

**RI**

You're twenty-three, and you're a mess of one night stands and rum-fueled benders, barely managing to hold yourself together enough to keep your job. You fumble your keys into your lock in between fervent kisses from the girl you have pinned between you and the door of your apartment. The deadbolt finally slides back, and you burst into your living room, the scent of stale alcohol burning up your nose. As you walk her backwards with your hand on her ass, the fact slams into you. You don't know her name.

You find the words on her right hip when you press her down onto your couch.  _Hi, I'm Matt_. You trace the script with the tip of your tongue and dissolve into laughter at the irony as you brace yourself over top of her.

She pushes herself up on her elbows and raises her eyebrows at you, her cheeks stained red from alcohol and exertion. "Something funny?"

You settle back on your heels and tug down the neck of your shirt until the words are exposed. She sits up, and has to lean close to keep you in focus as she mouths the syllables. She sobers up momentarily, commiseration heavy in her touch when she presses her palm to her hip, and then to your heart.

"You and me, we're pretty well fucked," you mumble, and you're nowhere near intoxicated enough to even be thinking about this. You dig in your back pocket and pull out your phone, stabbing the button programmed for your second speed dial before rolling off her.

You see her out to the taxi minutes later, your arm around her waist to help her stay upright. She leans into you more than she probably needs to, but you find you don't mind, now that you've discovered how alike you are. Kindred souls being put through hell by three words painted beneath their skin.

She kisses you messily, all vodka and apologies, and then melts back into the seat of the cab. You almost miss the slurred "Stay golden, Ponyboy", and chuckle to yourself as you gently close the door, then lean through the front window of the cab and give the driver her address.

**RI**

You're twenty-seven, and you're happy.

You're working your dream job, your family isn't quite as dysfunctional as usual, you're healthy and you're whole. You've got a best friend, and she more than makes up for the fact you haven't dated anyone in years.

You comment that she has one hell of a word, the first and only time you see her in short sleeves. You've come to her in the dead of night during the toughest case you've had in a while, and she answers the door in silk pyjamas that look fancier than anything you own.  _Maur_  wraps around her bicep, but she shakes her head, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You're the only one who's ever called me that," she replies, and your heart leaps into your throat, before you shove it back down, discard the thought as unfounded. It's not that difficult a nickname to work to.

You're twenty-seven, and you're dying.

You know you should take that extra second to grab your vest from the trunk and strap it on, but you don't. The perp has another toddler, and fuck if you're going to give him a chance to hurt this kid like he has the others. You draw your gun and run up the front steps, your academy CO's droning voice a backdrop to your movements, leading you through each step necessary to clear the house.

You're not sure how you miss the closet, and you don't notice you had until a deafening shot thunders out. A snickering voice in your head comments that you must've slept through that lecture, even as you're falling to the ground with your body inside-out. You get a shot off, and the figure falls, but there's a veritable fountain of blood coming from your chest.

You wrestle your radio from your belt, the plastic slick with your insides, and call it in. When you raise your hand in front of your face, you can almost pretend it's only paint dripping down your fingertips, but it's kind of hard to ignore that your other arm is cradled in front of your chest as you try to hold yourself together.

"Jane, just hang on, you're going to be okay," comes through the static, that oh-so-familiar voice, and you laugh, shards of pain jutting through your chest.

"Hives, Maur."

"EMS is coming, and there's a SWAT team a minute out." Her words are clinical, professional, but you can see right through it to the grief she tries to bury with detachment.

"They're not gonna make it," you slur, and your words taste like iron, flavored by the blood bubbling up your throat.

"You just need to hold on!"

"No time." You can barely form the words. You knew this job would kill you. You just didn't think it'd happen this soon.

"I love you," and the admission is punctuated by choking tears but it still chills you to the bone. Your hand drifts to your heart, traces the words through your shirt.  _I love you_. The most difficult soulmate to live with. A lifetime of dreading being told that you're wanted, that you're needed. A lifetime of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Maur," slips unsteadily from your lips, an affirmation of what you always knew subconsciously, and you try to say everything you've ever felt. But your tongue is heavy, anchored to your bottom jaw by fatigue, and the words won't come free. The edges of your vision are streaked with red.

And, just as you find her, you lose her.

**Author's Note:**

> starting to migrate from fanfiction.net over to ao3  
> hit me up at hawkeyesticks.tumblr.com to be added to the list of people I've made cry with this fic


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